


wreck-ignition

by corvus_corvus



Series: Corvus' Banned Together 2020 Submissions [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: 358/2 Days, Confrontation, Fantasizing, Just Barely Sexy, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Unrequited Lust, hot for teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:54:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25703137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvus_corvus/pseuds/corvus_corvus
Summary: Roxas thinks Axel knows everything. Still, there are things Roxas somehow knows he shouldn’t ask about. Not even to someone who was once his teacher.Especiallynot to someone who was once his teacher.
Relationships: Axel/Roxas (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Corvus' Banned Together 2020 Submissions [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860889
Kudos: 8
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	wreck-ignition

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt Hot for Teacher as a submission to Banned Together Bingo 2020. 
> 
> I can't believe I filled a prompt like that with Kingdom Hearts. Oh dear.

Roxas thinks Axel knows everything.

It’s why he asks him about friendship, love, apologies, purpose. Matters of the heart that Axel is all too deft at dodging under the pretense that they have none. Roxas asks anyways. Maybe he likes seeing the way it makes Axel nervous, always putting a hand to the back of his neck bashfully. Maybe he likes the way it makes himself nervous, a tight knot in his own gut that makes him feel alive.

Still, there are things Roxas somehow knows he shouldn’t ask about. Not even to someone who was once his teacher. _Especially_ not to someone who was once his teacher.

In reality, Axel’s become his best friend; he always makes a point to talk about them as equals. But sometimes, left to his own thoughts, Roxas likes to dream about what it was like when they first met. When Axel was more teacher than friend. What it would be like with Axel instructing him through moments of close contact and bated breath instead of combat? Or maybe it would start with a fight, with a misstep on Roxas’ part and Axel intervening. He’d start by chastising Roxas and grabbing his shoulders to correct his form. The serious tilt to his lips would set off sparks, but Roxas is weakest to the warmth in Axel’s eyes. When he squeezes Roxas’ shoulders _just just just_ a little before letting go, Roxas would ignite with want. 

He supposes it makes sense that he’d always feel like he’s burning up around Axel. Knowledge doesn’t lessen the intensity.

Sitting alone in his room, Roxas invites Axel’s words to echo around his mind until they twist into new contexts. The kind of context he knows he’d never hear from someone so stalwart about being a good mentor, but dreams of nevertheless. He’ll scrabble for even the smallest scraps. A kind, “C’mon, you can do better than that,” warps into something deep that Roxas swears he can feel weighing heavy on his tongue. A simple “Good work,” shifts from upbeat praise post-lesson to a satisfied groan paired with hands in wrapped in his hair. He’s doomed if he dares drag up Axel’s penchant for talking about “rewards,” instantly hearing the words gone rich and rumbling. Axel was such a good teacher, but now Roxas desperately wants Axel to teach him what it’s like to be pulled apart, to truly dissolve and reform around the touch of those long fingers and press of narrow hips. Roxas wants Axel. Roxas _wants_. 

Wanting is most definitely a feeling. It feels like part of having a heart, and that might be the most frightening thing of all.

Roxas tries to forget feeling and all its implications in his own touch. He tries to forget again that this touch is—will always be—his own and not the touch of his friend, his coworker, his goddamn _teacher_. Fuck. That’s the thought that makes him lose control, biting into his pillow to keep quiet. What is wrong with him?

The guilt never leaves, but he’d be lying if he said thinking about Axel teaching him something less orthodox didn’t continue to get him hot.

Knowing there’s no chance doesn’t stop Roxas, though. Against his better judgement, he catches his own gaze lingering on Axel’s jawline. Other times he keeps eye contact until Axel turns away with a raised eyebrow. And just because no one in the Organization will talk about how tight their coats are doesn’t mean Roxas hasn’t noticed. He traces the curve of Axel’s spine in every movement until he can draw it with his eyes closed.

Then there’s the times he’s looking for trouble. Roxas keenly feels that dark streak in him well up, the one that makes him gnash his teeth at authority. It’s the same impulse that makes him lick his ice cream slowly enough to inspire thoughts that his tongue might perform well elsewhere. Inflammatory actions with a little too much intent. Axel most certainly notices. He never comments, though, not really. Roxas doesn’t prompt him to. 

“How’s it going?” Axel keeps up conversation well. He’s too kind, Roxas thinks. Worrying about him, seeing him only as the strange new kid of the Organization.

All Roxas says back is, “Good enough,” as he looks forward and returns to daydreaming about Axel using his tongue for more than a helpful lecture.

One day it hits Roxas that all this playing with fire might have finally, dangerously, caught up with him. Axel confronts him without confrontation, as he is wont to do. Strategic and careful until the end, his words still sear Roxas like a fresh brand.

“Roxas, are you really sure that you don’t have a heart?”

And Roxas is frighteningly, painfully aware that he just might. He shouldn’t, he knows it defies the very definition of his being, but why else would it hurt so much to see the care in Axel’s eyes? Why couldn’t they have done this anywhere but here, where the sunset is warm and red and wreathes Axel in a halo of flame. It makes Roxas even more desperate to feel himself against Axel’s skin, truly a moth drawn to flame.

Roxas can see the knowing in Axel’s eyes, unguarded just for him. His chest aches. He’s been caught, all the words and air squeezed out of him. It was just a matter of time until Roxas found himself suffocating on the smolder he himself had been tending. 

The picture of petulance, Roxas looks down the height of the clocktower and swings his feet to ignore any would-be-maybe feelings. “I dunno. I can’t just look inside.” 

Quiet settles in the space between them. Axel’s silence is always meaningful; he probably wants more of an answer. Roxas sighs. “But I figure if there is something in there—inside us—then we’d feel it, wouldn’t we?”

_But I figure if there is something there—something between us—you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?_

Unspoken questions hang in the silence, but Axel has always had a knack for seeing through Roxas, anyways.

“True enough,” Axel responds with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you don’t remember what it’d be like to feel, right? You don’t remember anything about who you were before the Organization, so how would you know?”

“Then teach me.” The words spill out unbidden. “You remember your life before; teach me what it’s like to feel.” Roxas turns and grabs Axel’s hand where it rests on his thigh, underestimating the way want flares up inside at the contact. He can feel the strength and muscle that he’d imagined time and time again but had only gotten to witness in battle. It tips too quickly into confirming months of fantasies; Roxas is immediately choking on the thought of that strength being used on him, to be pushed until pliant. “You’re a good teacher, I’m sure—” Roxas pauses and watches Axel’s eyes go wide. 

It’s too late to explain this away, so instead he goes all in. Eye’s half-lidded and biting his lip before he continues, voice lowered. “I’m sure you can make me feel something. I’ll be on my best behavior, Axel. I promise.”

Axel stares at him nothing like how Roxas dreams. He looks concerned, all soft corners and drawn eyebrows. “I knew it,” he whispers. “You _are_ trying to—” Axel moves to hold his hand back, running his thumb across Roxas’ knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Roxas. I never meant to make you think that I was encouraging whatever this is.”

“You didn’t, I’m just—”

“No,” Axel pulls away, “I’m older than you. It’s my responsibility. I didn’t even know you thought of me as, as what, a teacher? This just keeps getting worse.” 

_No, that’s the best part_. Roxas turns red as soon as he thinks it.

“Uh oh.” Jaw dropped, Axel fails to stifle a laugh. “You like that? Geez, Roxas, pull it together.”

“Shut up!”

Axel’s back to grinning like usual and Roxas can’t look away. “Hot for teacher, huh?”

“No,” Roxas jumps to his feet. Definitely not hot. Desperate, hopeless, hungry, something he can’t escape. Looking at that smirk, even when it’s at his expense, makes Roxas dream of how expressive those lips can be. What situations might make them twist differently. Why can’t he stop thinking-feeling-wanting?

Axel stands to match him, placing a hand on Roxas’ shoulder. Alarm bells go off in Roxas’ mind at their proximity. “Classic. Be a little nicer to yourself; it happens. I’ll give you some space.” He barely squeezes his shoulder—just like he always does, reality or fantasy—before walking away. A final “Sorry, Roxas” over his shoulder and Axel’s gone.

Doesn’t Axel realize how much worse he’s making this by being kind? It’s then that Roxas realizes he’s half hard and all alone at the top of of Twilight Town’s clock tower. He crumples to the floor grumbling at himself. It’ll be fine; there’s no way he’s walking back into the castle like this, so he’ll wait it out before heading home. At least that’s what he plans to do before his mind unhelpfully wanders back to the sway of Axel’s hips as he walked away. Roxas scowls at his own thoughts.

He’s doomed.

**Author's Note:**

> How do I feel after writing this fic? To quote Ventus, “I’m asking you, as a friend… just put an end to me.”
> 
> Note: I know that the student-teacher type relationship Roxas and Axel have in 358/2 Days is technically short-lived, but based on how he consults Axel for a lot of the game and doesn’t even admit that Axel might not know everything until Day 75 (based on Roxas’ diary entries, which are fifty percent “Axel said” anyways), I think that relationship made a deep impression on Roxas. It might even haunt his thoughts a little.
> 
> I had a lot of alternative end notes for this piece, and silly end notes are one of my favorite things, so here’s the alternates for your entertainment. Think of them as bloopers or questionable, mood-ruining commentary.
> 
>   * Note: The alarm bells in Roxas’ mind undoutbtedly sound like the low HP alarm. BWUOO BWUOO BWUOO BWUOO aksdhaklhfskh…
>   * How about that gratuitous fire imagery, huh? Burn, baby!
>   * What’s this? A scene with Axel without a single “got it memorized?” Yeah, if I had to write Roxas somehow finding that ridiculous quote sexy I might have just died on the spot. Also you have my sincere apologies for dragging ice cream into this, even for a moment.
>   * I rarely think the world might be better if some things were not written at all, but this is one such case. I wrote it anyways. Oops.
>   * A brief glimpse into Axel’s point of view for this whole endeavor: _what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck oh no_.
> 



End file.
